i have no good title for this.

In the past few months, I’ve had two big falling out(s)(?) with two separate friends, both of whom I would at one point considered to be my closest or best friends. Normally, I would look at this as a failure on my part somehow, what am I doing wrong, etc…but that wasn’t the case here.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate having conflict with people. I want everyone to like me (even if I don’t like them), and I ultimately care a great deal what others think of me (almost to a compulsive degree, a personality trait that has caused me more pain than good these days). But for all my talk of not keeping useless clutter in the form of people in one’s life, I have a hard time pulling the plug, even if my frustrations/irritations with someone have been building up for months, continually proving that a friendship does not make much sense anymore.

This is not a place for muckraking and or kicking dead horses, so I’ll keep the details brief. One of the fights was over something relatively big, though they had slowly become someone I was liking less and less for many months prior. While his actions were certainly destructive and selfish, it was his inability to recognize his error in judgment or even offer me any sort of apology that ultimately left me with “enough is enough”. As it stands right now, we are at a standstill until he apologizes, which I know on paper sounds awfully petty…but I have a bad habit of forgiving people too often, or trying to move past it so everything can be hunky dory, when in fact it’s not ok, and not forgiven, with trust broken and respect (for me, the person who allows people to treat her that way) eventually lessened.

The most recent one just happened today, and I’m still too raw to talk about it without plainly showing the anger I have towards this person’s complete lack of respect for me and the friendship I’ve shown her for many years. We got into our first fight about a year ago, the first time I had ever vocalized my hurt feelings in regards to our friendship. We have had several more since then, though, even at our most angry, I think we both actively avoided saying any of those key things from which there is little turning back: calling names, cursing at one another, being INTENTIONALLY mean, etc. But then, today, in the midst of another argument, which actually started from something relatively small (my birthday), but stemmed to other things, she said one of the most selfish, bratty things I think I had ever heard come out of her mouth. In reference to favors I had done FOR her. And then, realizing that I was truly facing that final nail, I took it and slammed it hard in that coffin. And told her to go to hell, knowing full well that by doing that, I was saying goodbye to the friendship.

Neither of these people are bad people. I know this sounds trite and/or fake, but I wish good things for both of them. Both of them have the ability to succeed in life in great ways. Both have given me great support and friendship and a lot of joy in my life. Both of them have a hard time being honest with themselves, and neither of them have I ever seen take a good hard look at their life and striven for real, genuine self improvement. Both need to, quite frankly, mature a great deal more than they think they already have (though in entirely different ways). I am far from a victim or faultless in either of these situations. But I recognize and acknowledge what my faults are (or at least try to) both with these people and on my own, as a human being. Friend A and I may patch things up, I’m not sure. Friend B and I don’t really have anything in common anymore, and our priorities in life are extremely different, and I don’t expect her to change anytime soon. And while I pride myself on having an extremely eclectic collection of friends (because sticking with one genre of human all the time is AWFULLY boring), at a certain point… *shrugs*. All I know is that, while I was hurt by their attitude, and am still occasionally quite pissed off (which will probably come and go in waves), there was a small part of me that felt a bit…calm. Like my body knew that ultimately this was for the best.

However, a nice ending to this otherwise melancholy post: while i try to leave my bitching and negative attitude when posting status updates or things on twitter to a minimum (though I’m human, and not always successful), I posted something in reference to the crappy day I was having/that a very long friendship had ended on Twitter and Facebook. And throughout the day, I had friends, some closer than others, either doing things to cheer me up, or going out of their way to contact me personally and just make sure I was ok , and that they hoped my day get better(even from some friends who I would not think would do that, quite honestly). It was a nice reminder that this is what I SHOULD expect from people I call my friends, that I wasn’t wrong for asking for more in the first place.

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7 Responses to “i have no good title for this.”

A good post. You have to let go of people who make you feel “less than”. Having expectations about anyone’s behavior but your own usually end up disappointing you. It sounds like you have plenty of other friends, so don’t hesitate to move on. We are not meant to be friends with everyone always.

It’s really awkward talking about someone else’s friend, but for the whole time I’ve known you, I can’t really remember one of these people ever being supportive of you. In fact, she downright seemed to resent you growing up and changing.

That is not friendship. My friends, the ones I’ve known for 10+ years, would never say anything negative to me about any life changes I made, especially if they were positive.

As for your birthday, that was plain silly and fucking ridiculous AND selfish. It’s YOUR birthday, not hers. It’s YOUR day, not hers. I’m not even into the mustache idea, but it’s your birthday so a mustache I shall don.

But yes, the more I think about this, the more relieved I am. I wish it hadn’t happened this way, of course… but it feels empowering to not keep people in your life who don’t respect you.

Again though, while i appreciate the support, I really don’t want this to turn into a bashing of anyone. I tried to be as respectful as I could (while still being as angry as i am) in that post. I just felt like I wanted to post something in regards to what happened, and how i’m feeling about it.

And, just so you know, I’m not bashing anyone in particular. I’m bashing the lack of support you’ve received from certain people in your life.

And, I imagine it’s incredibly hurtful coming from someone who you considered your best friend.

With that said, you should be incredibly proud of yourself! I mean, you tutor homeless kids! You’re in school. You volunteer for a farm sanctuary on a regular basis. You have an incredibly eclectic and intelligent group of friends from all walks of life.

And I know I tease you a lot about it, but as a math major and someone who is oft angry at teh world, it’s totally great having an artsy, light-hearted person to balance that out. 😛

All in all, welcome to freaks side of the world. You’re one of us now. 😛 ha ha.